PNP is an addon to nagios which analyzes performance data provided by plugins and stores them automatically into RRD-databases (Round Robin Databases, see RRD Tool).

During development of PNP we set value on easy installation and little maintenance while running it. An administrator should do other things than configure graphing tools.

To achieve this task we focused on using standards. PNP only processes performance data built according to the Developer Guidelines for nagios plugins. With this limitation we want to honour the work of Nagios Plugin Developers who stick to the guidelines.

For all of those who are still curious the following documentation is made which should help to ease the access to PNP.

Some basic thoughts should be made prior to installation. PNP knows several ways to process performance data.
Processing depends on the size of the nagios-installation and that's why there is no recommendation which mode to use.